


i missed you today, so bad that it hurt

by swimthewholeriogrande



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Major Character Injury, Recovery, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 17:19:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16067720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: In which a blow lands, and a life is destroyed.





	i missed you today, so bad that it hurt

**Author's Note:**

> Literally just pointless angst i have no excuse  
> Title from NYLA by Blackbear

In Jack's memories - which were beautiful, filigree, rich and entrancing things - Crutchie was always golden. He was always a million miles above the city in Jack's penthouse and so bright it hurt to look at him, so unaffected by and yet so perceptive to everything around them that it made Jake's throat close up with longing. In Jack's memories nothing hurt, not even Crutchie's leg or the unspoken emotional chasm between them, carving holes out of them both with every day that passed; they simply were.

In Jack's reality of that day - which was an infinitely harder object to get his mind around - everything was dark and hurting and chaotic. There were too many bulls and too many newsies, too many people for one tiny square or the city; he could hear a long, unbroken wail that could have come from anyone; then he heard his name.

Crutchie was rolling, jerking, grunting and howling on the ground as he tried to dodge blows from his own crutch - goddamn fucking cowards, Jack thought wildly of the goading Delanceys, stamping on Crutchie's bad leg and changing the pitch of his screams. Maybe it was Jack's fault in the end, for hollering Oscar's name and making him look up as he swung, or maybe it was because Crutchie twisted the wrong way at the wrong time. It didn't matter.

The crutch hit his head with a sickening, cracking thud, and Jack knew he was dead before Crutchie even stopped moving, the idle twitch of his slowing hands as his body relaxed into the road. There was blood on Oscar's shoes; he dropped the weapon, his face pale and appalled, and Jack stood quite still. Crutchie's face was turned away from him like he couldn't bear to meet Jack's eyes. His hair was matted and turning red.

There was a ringing noise, or just Jack's ears. The Delanceys were backing away in boyish horror, suddenly murderers at only seventeen - Crutchie was a body at only sixteen. Jack's chest started to hum. He took a heavy step forwards and then stopped again.

Oh, something said distantly in his brain, oh.

The fighting started to clear as Oscar screamed, high and panicked, that they had to leave, now. The other newsies started to pick themselves back up; Crutchie did not. His bad leg was dirty, like he'd been dragging it. His fingers were curled and still.

"Oh my God!"

That was the first exclaim, followed by many more and a rushing of feet. Specs rolled Crutchie onto his back - grotesquely limp - Albert tried to take his pulse, pinch his ears for a reaction - Elmer retched at the foot of a statue. Jack felt cool hands tugging at him.

"Jack, pal, come on. Jack, Jack, you's hurt real bad. Let us take care of you."

No, I'm taking care of him, Jack thought or maybe said aloud, and his numb, drunken feet started to move him towards Crutchie for good this time. Albert had given up on the pulse - even if it had been there, his hands were shaking too bad - and was saying in a high voice, "It was Oscar. We gotta tell someone. It was Oscar. I saw."

No kidding. Jack went to his knees in one fluid, graceless movement. Crutchie was staring past him, at the sky, mouth slightly open with a few crooked teeth and his good Sunday shirt ripped at the collar. The wound was hidden by a thatch of messy blonde hair, curling tactfully over whatever had resulted a killing blow; Jack reached to touch and then brought his fingers to his mouth instead, biting them hard.

Oh. Oh.

Jack had that day clear, in a mind that he could not trust to record anything in the time that followed. He could remember nothing of the short period after wherein they had moved the body, ratted out Oscar without mercy, found a cemetery with cheap enough plots for orphans to afford together - all of that was murk and rain like holy water. Jack had always thought holy water was kinda gross; if so many people put their dirty fingers in the same bowl, didn't it kind of cancel out any divine cleanliness? Then again, maybe it was that kind of thinking that had ruined his life; believing he knew better than his friends, than Joseph Pulitzer, than God.

Yes. Murk and sin. Spot Conlon sent a letter of condolences that Jack would never show a living soul; Katherine sent flowers and food and other things rich people send when someone dies. Jack took to grief like an ache in his stomach - constant, painful, just on the wrong side of bearable, and Crutchie haunted him, a ghost in the form of a feeling he had ignored until it was too late, and then some time longer.

"I love you," he tried out to empty air, "I love you, you stupid thing." Other times he raged. Other times Racetrack said with him and they predicted the weather together, drawing conclusions from gathering clouds instead of from a crippled boy's aches and cramps and smiles. It was never quite as accurate.

In Jack's memories Crutchie was an inexcusable planetary pull, something that didn't ask for attention and yet demanded it from anyone and everyone in a room. In Jack's present, and surely his future, Crutchie was much the same - a flicker at the corner of his eyes, a pained and lovely presence at the edge of the world and beyond.


End file.
